VMRO-DPMNE party

Nikola Gruevski has offered to support a minority government led by the SDSM if its leader gave up on implementing the so-called Tirana Platform.

According to the MIA agency, former Macedonian PM Gruevski, the leader of the VMRO-DPMNE party, thinks the platform in question "could fundamentally change Macedonia and lead to divisions along ethnic lines."

The leader of the social democrat SDSM party in Macedonia is to ask the President for a mandate to form a government after shaking hands with ethnic Albanian party DUI, local media report.

At a meeting on Saturday, the SDSM has unanimously picked Zoran Zaev as the mandate bearer candidate.

BELGRADE - Macedonia's (FYROM) president on Monday resumed the search for a new prime minister after the former premier failed to form a government, despite his party's narrow election victory, EurActiv.com reports.

The December vote was held as part of a European Union-brokered deal between Macedonia's four main political parties aimed at ending a long-running political crisis.

VMRO-DPMNE party, which has dominated Macedonian politics since 2006, has a 1.24% lead on socialist rival SDSM in Sunday's election, official results show.

With nearly all the vote counted, the party of former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski has got 37.98% of the vote.

Support for SDSM of Zoran Zaev is at 36.74%, according to the Central Election Commission (DIK)'s website.

Former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski's VMRO-DPMNE party has having a 4-5 percent lead on social democrat SDSM of Zoran Zaev, first poll data shows.

The conservative party, which has been at the helm of Macedonia for ten years. has got 41.35%, with nearly a third of the vote counted.

SKOPJE, MACEDONIA —
Polls opened Sunday in Macedonia for a general election called two years early as part of a Western-brokered agreement to end a paralyzing political crisis.

Macedonia's election campaign formally started on Monday and over the next 20 days the parties will be holding rallies and round tables and trying to visit as many places as they can.

The controversial Macedonian journalist who claimed the desecration of a Bulgarian memorial plaque in September became a member of a number of governmental workgroups earlier this year, Macedonian media report.

The leader of Macedonia's main ruling party is trying to raise anti-Bulgarian sentiment to win the forthcoming elections in the country, a Bulgarian MEP opines.

Andrey Kovatchev (EPP/GERB)'s comment comes amid a row between the two counties over a memorial plaque which a Macedonian journalist claims to have destroyed.

Tensions in Macedonia continued to run high on Tuesday, as thousands of pro-opposition protesters gathered in Skopje and other parts of the country, while parallel protests took place in several towns.

Protests were sparked by last week's decision of Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov to pardon 56 political figures for their alleged involvement in last year's wiretapping scandal.